Cabinet nod to 17 reserve units in J&K, LWE regions

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared the move to raise as many as 17 new special police battalions in Jammu and Kashmir and Naxal-hit states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The decision is expected to create atleast 17,000 new jobs for the youth in the states battling insurgency and Naxal influence.

The decision to create 17 new Indian Reserve Battalions (IRBs) was cleared at a meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While a maximum of five IRBs will be raised in JK, four will be raised in Left wing wxtremism-hit state of Chhattisgarh, three each in Jharkhand and Orissa and two in Maharashtra.

In a bid to create employment and provide jobs to the local youth , in JK 60 per cent of vacancies in the new IRBs will be filled from border districts of the statefor recruitment in the ranks of constables and class IV employees in their establishment, a Cabinet statement said.

In the LWE-hit states, 75 per cent of vacancies of constables in the new IRBs will be filled from 27 core districts identified under the Security Related Expenditure scheme which categories the worst Naxal violence-affected regions in the country as flagged by the Union home ministry.

An IRB is a special auxillary unit of trained police personnel to assist and aid regular police units in rendering special tasks of law and order upkeep or to undertak counter-insurgency operations.

The IRBs were first created in 1971 by the central government and till now 144 such units have been raised out of a total sanctioned 153. An IRB has an estimated operational strength of 1,000 personnel.